| Language is a communicative tool for human beings. The final goal of language teaching is to let the learner communicate effectively and appropriately through the use of language. To learn a language is a process of developing pragmatic competence of this language. College English teaching aims to develop the learner's communicative competence, which largely depends on the practice of classroom teaching. However, the status quo of College English teaching in China today is not satisfactory in that the teacher pays much attention to the teaching of the learner's linguistic skills, but little attention to the cultivation of the learner's communicative competence. As a result, quite a few students are linguistically competent, but cannot communicate effectively and appropriately. Thus, the present paper tries to make a tentative investigation on how to apply speech act theory to College English teaching, focusing on the communicative language teaching approach, teaching cultures in class and reforming the test system.The theory of speech acts was first advanced by the British philosopher, J. Austin, in 1955. He held that language is not only an instrument to describe things, but it is used to perform acts. Then speech act theory was developed and systematized by J. Searle in the1960s and the 1970s. He deemed that speech acts are basic elements of social communication. The theory of speech acts has become one of the most important theories in pragmatics. Its essence is that it holds that language is used to perform acts, thus focusing on language use, which lays the theoretical basis for the communicative language teaching approach. In view of the current College English teaching in China, it is practicable to take the integrated interactive methods as effective ways under the guidance of speech act theory. By taking the advantage of the characteristics of the communicative language teaching approach we can help the college students achieve the goal of College English teaching and cultivate their communicative competence in language learning and using.This dissertation consists of six chapters.Chapter One presents an introduction to the whole dissertation by clarifying the objectives of the study and the organization of the paper.Chapter Two provides an overview of speech act theory, elaborates Austin's distinction between constatives and performatives, his classification of speech acts and illocutionary acts. Searle's development of speech act theory, especially his proposal of felicity conditions on speech acts, his revised classification of illocutionary acts and indirect speech act theory, is also taken into account in this chapter.Chapter Three deals with the interpretation of speech acts. This chapter accounts for speech acts in connection with Grice's Cooperative Principle, Leech's Politeness Principle and Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory.Chapter Four reviews the three popular methods concerning foreign language teaching: Grammar-Translation Method, Audiolingual Method and Communicative Approach. In this chapter, we also point out the current situation of College English teaching and discuss the weaknesses of the present teaching system and methodology. A detailed analysis has been made of classroom teaching, pragmatic failure and test system and the defects and results they have brought about.Chapter Five concentrates on how to apply speech act theory to College English teaching. First, the goal of College English teaching has been clearly defined as cultivatingthe learner's communicative competence in actual situation. Second, the relationship between speech act theory and the communicative language teaching approach is examined and it has been found that speech act theory lays the theoretical foundation on the communicative language teaching approach. Thirdly, culture teaching should be involved in English class so as to increase the learner's cross-cultural awareness. Finally, the test system should be reformed to put into better practice the communicative language te...
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